It's a circle made by robots

Today I blew some air out of my nose at a more rapid pace than I use to. Actually, I did twice. If you know me, you know I don't do that very often. It's kind of my thing to not smile or laugh about things. Some people tell me that I'm dead inside and when they look into my eyes they feel their soul leaving their bodies. Not my problem, I think.

But that's neither here nor there. I didn't blow my nose because of a cold, but because I read two things that seemed funny to me (see, I'm not fully dead inside). First off, and I know this is very niche, I read that carmaker Faraday Future is going to build a humanoid robot. The kicker: while it still hasn't produced a meaningful amount of cars in about a decade (16 total), it thinks it will beat Tesla to market with their Optimus-killer. Pfew.

Second: I read about the Dreame CEO who was very proud to launch his new car company 'Star Motor'. Not Star MotorS, Star Motor, just one motor. Just after presenting two and a half cars (one is almost the same as another, just slightly longer), he couldn't help himself but to call out Elon Musk: "In 20 years, Tesla will become the iRobot of the electric vehicle sector". Funny coming from a company just entering the EV-market with a clone of a Rolls-Royce and maker of very non-humanoid vacuuming robots.

But we all know that Mr. Dreame will shortly introduce his own humanoid robot. At which point he'll probably again claim his product will be better than that of Mr. Musk. Which it probably will be. Because, let's face it, Optimus is pretty much a robot controlled by somebody in a suit behind a curtain.

After letting my mind go into the robot-rabbit hole, it shook some mechanical hand and made a connection. Musk is quietly doing it again. The f*cker is creating a market for humanoid robots. Not the one he's envisioning, but one nonetheless. Just as he's missing the mark(et) with his electric cars and taxi's, he's focussing on the wrong thing with Optimus and others, led by the buzz Musk is generating, are jumping into the right markets.

You might not know it, but multiple car manufacturers are quietly testing the use of humanoid robots in their factories to see if they can replace some pesky meatbags which can be affected by things like getting wounded, wanting cash for time worked, and needing time off to recharge their energy.

For example: BMW is actively using some bots from the San Francisco startup Figure in their factory in Spartanburg, US. And Mercedes-Benz has one Apptronik Apollo robot working shifts in the factory in Berlin-Marienfelde, Germany. Apparently he's able to smile while working too...

Can you guess how many Optimus robots are doing any form of useful work in Tesla factories? I gave this one away, didn't I? It's 0, as in ZERO, nill, nada, nothing. Not one. But Musk is the one shouting about it the most and he's getting people on the hype train.

So, first of all, let's hope Mr. Dreame is very wrong about his iRobot future. That would mean Musk's robots will be taking over, which I would find mildly irritating. Second of all, let's hope he'll make the same business decisions as he's doing with the car side of Tesla. And by that I mean, getting people to see the use of new technologies before getting caught up and passed by by companies way better at it, and finally doing something weird like make Optimus a taxi driver or something for his Cybercab service. Maybe then the damned things won't keep crashing into cyclists at every turn. Although, that might not be such a bad thing...

In other news

We finally know the reason why two of my favorite car Youtuber claimed they were in London 'for no reason at all'. Turns out James Engelsman and Thomas Holland will be hosting the new version of The Grand Tour. Sorry, before I go on, can we please look at the last names of the two guys. As a Dutchman they are funny somewhere. You're not getting it? It's just me again? Alright, let's keep going. There is also a third host, but he is very much into trains, although everybody keeps telling us he's really a car guy, because he engine swapped his girlfriend's Honda Jazz. I think that means Luke Magnus Nicolson, who goes by Francis Bourgeois on the Instagrams and TikToks, has some petrol sloshing around in his head somewhere.